Marketing to Minorities: Expansion and Development (1950s-1990s)

Market Segmentation among Minorities

By the mid-1980s, the concept of market segmentation, first introduced in the 1950s, expanded to include market research on distinct parts of minority populations. Advertising agencies recognized that race could not be the sole factor in creating effective advertising campaigns, particularly as immigrants adjusted to American cultural norms and began to look for goods that emphasized their individuality and differentiated them from their minority group. In addition, minority populations grew at such a rate that there was enough of a market to target specific segments rather than the group as a whole. 

"Can a magazine please Hispanics of all walks of life? Will a Cuban from Miami be interested in the same thing as a Puerto Rican from New York?" -Advista, 1989

Imagen was a Puerto Rican magazine that went into print in the latter half of the 1980s. It aimed to appeal to all Hispanics, but in interviews with AdVista, the magazine admitted to having difficulty appealing to Mexican-Americans and Cuban-Americans as well as Puerto Rican-Americans. Their statement indicates that the magazine and its advertisers are thinking about how best to tailor their product to specific groups within the Hispanic population without alienating others. No longer was it enough to simply target Hispanics as a whole, the magazine needed to look for ways to appeal to their Puerto Rican base while still attending to the distinct desires of other Hispanic groups. Furthermore, Imagen planned to start its circulation base in the Northeast, a definite turn from magazines that attempted to attract readers from across the country. Advertisers began to explore the possibility of targeting the needs and wants of specific racial and geographic regions, rather than lumping those races and regions into one.

Trojan Statistics

"Target Audience." Bates Worldwide, Inc. records. Box CL48. Folder: "Trojan Condoms: Media Strategy."

The confluence of geography and race for Imagen is only one example of intersectionality. Advertisers began to conduct research that combined other aspects of identity - such as age and gender - with race. The Bates Worldwide, Inc. records show that Trojan, a leading condom brand, conducted market research on both age and race. This research showed that the African American and Hispanic young adult populations in the United States used Trojan condoms least, which led Trojan to develop specific marketing campaigns targeting these particular age and racial groups.

Market segmentation occurred on the consumer side, too. In the Rena Bartos papers (Box 32), a report titled “Advertising and Black America” concludes that African-American consumers bought products to differentiate themselves from others. Middle and upper class  African-Americans tended to buy higher-quality items that operated as status symbols and showed their ability to earn and pay for luxury items. In the past, housing and other types of discrimination prevented African-Americans from displaying their wealth, so consumer goods became an important buying platform for African-Americans to showcase their success.

  1. Guernica, Antonio, Reaching the Hispanic Market Effectively : The Media, the Market, the Methods. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. 100-110. Print. John W. Hartman Center for Sales  Advertising & Marketing History. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

 

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